Xbox Live On Windows 8 Promises Asynchronous Cross Platform Games

by Antti Vilpponen 17:06 CEST on 16 September, 2011

We've covered Microsoft's new Windows 8 quite extensively this week on ArcticStartup from the Build conference, but the truth is - all this will have a lot of implications in the different ecosystems regarding mobile operating systems, app stores and what not. Furthermore, enabling Xbox Live to run as an application on Windows 8 OS will have huge possibilities for gaming companies.

Yesterday, Microsoft program manager Avi Ben-Menahem demoed running Xbox Live on Windows 8. The presentation was caught on camera by GeekWire and WinRumors. We've got the videos embedded below.

Getting Xbox Live running on Windows 8 itself isn't all that big news, but adding a lot of social features (including the cloud) and spicing it up with support for asynchronous cross platform games is.

Ben-Menahem also made it clear that the Xbox Live application is not using any proprietary APIs to show the data it is using. This means that any programmer or startup out there is able to use the available APIs and create pretty nifty gaming applications.

Cross platform support basically means that Xbox Live will in the future run on Windows Phones and Nokia is looking to build devices to make that experience better. What's also noticeable in the videos is how quick games launch in the new operating system.

So what all this basically boils down to is that the Xbox game consoles, PCs and mobiles will all use the same platform in the future to let people run games on. This should be good news for any gaming startup innovating in this space.

Please see my first post on Windows 8 on disclosure statements regarding attendance to the event.